Electric household and professional electric appliances (hereinafter, appliance(s), for the sake of conciseness) typically comprises an inner compartment accommodating a drum accessible by a user for loading items (e.g., laundry or dishware) to be treated (e.g., washed and/or dried) and unloading the items after the intended treatment has been accomplished, as well as (e.g., electric/electro-hydraulic/electro-mechanical) components (part of a circuit system of the appliance) for accomplishing the intended treatment.
Such components typically comprise electric loads (such as electric motors and electric washing/heating resistors) selectively coupleable, for their energization, between line and neutral terminals of an AC electric power supply, as well as switching devices operable for allowing such selective coupling.
As known, many faults may affect such components, such as electric loads leakage, and/or switching devices failures.
Considering for example insulation issues arising in electric washing/heating resistors (e.g., due to usage wear, overheating, contaminants and/or mechanical stress), undesired electric power (e.g., electric current) may leak towards ground (thereby increasing power consumption, or, even worse, posing safety hazards for a user), or towards the line or neutral terminals (thereby impairing the intended treatment, and, finally, damaging the whole appliance).
Considering instead failures (e.g., missing switching) arising in the switching devices (e.g., due to control errors or any, temporary or permanent, mechanical malfunction), an undesired electric load may be energized instead of the intended one (thereby impairing the intended treatment).
Most of known solutions aimed at faults determination are based on monitoring of electrical quantities (i.e., current and/or voltage) of each component potentially affected by faults.
EP2386675 discloses a washing and/or drying appliance, comprising a heating circuit for heating a washing liquid and/or a drying air flow, the heating circuit being connected to voltage distribution lines distributing power inside the appliance and comprising at least one heating resistor in series to switch means controlled by an appliance control unit for selectively energizing the heating resistor when required. The switch means of the heating circuit comprise a first and a second switches in series to the heating resistor, the heating resistor being interposed between the first and second switch. A monitoring circuit arrangement is associated with the heating circuit, said monitoring circuit arrangement comprising a resistive network including a first resistor connected to the heating circuit so as to be bypassed when the first switch is closed, the heating resistor, and a second resistor connected to the heating circuit so as to be bypassed when the second switch is closed, the monitoring circuit arrangement further comprising a current sensor arranged to measure a current flowing through the resistive network and to feed an indication of the measured current to the control unit. The monitoring unit is configured for assessing possible faults of the heating circuit based on the indication of the measured current.
EP2386680 discloses a washing and/or drying appliance, comprising a heating circuit for heating a washing liquid and/or a drying air flow, connected to voltage distribution lines distributing power inside the appliance and comprising at least one heating resistor in series to switch means controlled by an appliance control unit for selectively energizing the heating resistor when required. The switch means of the heating circuit comprise a first and a second switches in series to the heating resistor, the heating resistor being interposed between the first and second switches. A monitoring circuit arrangement is provided, said monitoring circuit arrangement comprising a first resistor in shunt to the heating resistor and having a resistance substantially higher than that of the heating resistor, and a pull-up network connected between a first terminal of the heating resistor and one of the voltage distribution lines, the control unit being configured for receiving a voltage corresponding to an electric potential at a second terminal of the heating resistor.